Monday, March 28, 2011
"Writing Center Tutors Have the Luxury to Focus on Individual Student Care Giving as Opposed to Formal Classroom Settings That Are Less Care Centered"
In our case, I think Renee A. Pistone, author of this article, is preaching to the choir. I believe our staff is especially caring, and we show it in a number of ways: asking about students' home life or their weekends, commiserating with their frustration over a particular assignment, and being sensitive to their vulnerability in the case of very basic writers. I liked Pistone's analogy of a midwife. Surely a writing project that can finally stand on its own can be compared to a brand-new life. It truly is a new life--for a new idea or an insightful new perspective. (It may be even better in that it doesn't involve any diaper changes or middle-of-the-night crying jags.) My only suggestion is that we keep pulling our conversations with students back to writing. Although we're caring and friendly, we are tutors--not therapists. The boundary between the two sometimes seems blurred, but it's a boundary we need to acknowledge. By putting friendship before tutoring, we're not really serving the student. That student may need our caring, but he or she also needs our expertise in writing. How do we recognize this boundary? How close is too close regarding our relationships with students? Or should this not be an issue? What do you think?
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This article brought up some interesting points about using a caring approach instead of a strictly pedagogical approach. Our philosophy at the Writing Center is very similar to this: we aim to provide a comfortable environment in which to improve students as writers, and to empower them through developing their abilities. Pistone speaks about being caring tutors; I think that at our Writing Center, we've been able to find a good balance between being a "psychoanalyst", as the article discusses, and being writing guides.
ReplyDeleteAsking students a bit about themselves and their lives is a caring approach, but it can be carried too far. As our handbook states, having brief personal discussions with students is alright, but discussing home life for half of a tutoring session is not. There is a line between having a friendly professional relationship and becoming so involved in a student's personal matters that it's impossible to actually tutor. The article encourages tutors to get to know their students and to be nurturing, but I disagree with its comparison to the role of a family member. With our basic writers, this may be helpful in building self esteem, and we have a semester's worth of time to get to know one another and work on improving writing skills. But when students who do not frequent the writing center come in for half hour appointments, it is impractical to be a "mother;" we can still be caring, and take a genuine interest in the students and their writing, but it's impossible to fully address any underlying self-esteem issues the students may have about their abilities. What we can do is try to encourage them to confident in the work they already have done, and point out what they are doing well.
This is from Karla Huber, NOT Frances FitzGerald
ReplyDeleteRenee Pistone’s explanation of the psychology behind why many students come to the writing center clarifies one issue I’ve had as a tutor. I’ve often wanted to say to a student who doesn’t understand her instructor’s revision comments, “Why didn’t you just ask him what he meant?” For me, that’s easy to do—After reading this article, I realize it’s easy for me because I’m a confident writer, who doesn’t tend to be intimidated by instructors. Many other students are intimidated, however, or may have observed instructors acting in ways that discourage students from seeking one-on-one help or clarification—such as being impatient, having limited or no office hours, not being available after class, etc. This simply didn’t occur to me before reading this article. Now, I feel better prepared to be more empathetic and nurturing to students who have difficulty articulating, or asking their instructors to articulate, what exactly is being asked of them.
The point Pistone made about tutors being like psychologists was the theme of one presentation at the Eastern Central Writing Centers Association (ECWCA) conference in March. Curtis Scheck of Kent State University in Ohio started doing research into how to deal with emotionally-distraught students in the writing center, after feeling like he didn’t do a good job of handling his first-ever crying students. Emotional distress can contribute to a student’s inability to compose well-articulated and well-organized essays. Also, Scheck pointed out, if a tutor is trying too hard to ignore a student’s distress, the tutor may end up focusing more on the specific paper than on helping the student with her writing skills in general.
We can’t counsel students, of course, but we can help by acknowledging they are upset, so they don’t have the added stress of struggling to appear composed and focused. Having an informative brochure, or at least a phone number, on hand for Madonna’s psychology clinic is also a good idea. A good way of wording it so students don’t think we feel like they need a “shrink” is, “There are people on campus you can talk to that can help you deal with your stress...”
Scheck also recommended that in professional development meetings, writing centers practice role-playing to diagnose our individual tutoring styles, and our strengths and limitations, regarding handling emotionally awkward situations with tutees. This could be particularly helpful and timely for the last professional development meeting of the semester before finals.
The very nature of writing makes it a subject more prone to bringing out anxieties and stress, especially in students for whom writing is not a strength. Other subjects may be difficult to master (math springs to mind) but generally there is a concrete, correct answer. On the other hand, when it comes to writing people often have to depend on feedback from instructors, tutors, or friends. So many times people are more critical of their own writing than it actually deserves. Having said that, I think this adds to any personal issues students may be trying to handle when they come to the Writing Center, so I particularly enjoyed this article. Being able to build relationships with the lab students throughout the semester or having a friendly conversation with someone who has come in for just one paper is a great way to balance out writing projects/assignments that may be less than enjoyable.
ReplyDeleteAs the article points out, however, sometimes it can be a challenge to keep the focus on the writing itself and writing tutor starts to blur with therapist. In that case, I think the next step depends on the nature of the student’s struggles. If it is really serious, obviously that is not something we are able to handle, but if it is simply a matter of needing to vent a bit in order to focus on the writing then devoting a few minutes of tutoring time to that would not hurt. I would argue that the tutors in the Writing Center have a talent for balancing an empathetic, personal approach with actual writing tutoring.
The article talks about one of those sessions we all dread. I really haven’t had a tutoring session like this yet, but I have heard other tutors going through similar ones. I have had sessions with my own students in which they have cried, and it makes me very uncomfortable. Not only do I feel bad for “making them cry,” but it completely shakes me “off topic.” The advice is the article is good, and I plan to try it out in the future.
ReplyDeleteOne piece of advice I didn’t agree with is the suggestion that a tutor say, “Have you had this problem with other papers?” when an emotional writer appears in front of him/her. This seems to trivialize the problem. Wouldn’t it be better to say, “You seem to have a lot of emotion tied up in this assignment.” Usually, just making a statement like this will help a student begin talking about what he/she is feeling at the moment. A question can sometimes seem accusatory.
I like the idea of sharing our own stories with our tutees. Students often say things in order to elicit sympathy from us. They’ll say, “I haven’t been in school for twenty years!” or “I’m taking a lot of classes this semester!” or “I drive an hour-and-a-half one way to get here.” While they are asking for sympathy, they are also often asking for permission to not get in all their hours, skip a part of the assignment, or have the tutor fix the paper in question. My response is usually, “Yes, that’s got to be tough.” I can then share my own experience of being over-whelmed by my own return to college after being out for twenty years and then offer a tip for getting through the situation. Something like, “Yes, it’s hard. I found it helped a lot to take a few minutes to myself every day.”